Review: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Feb 6 2009 by Aranda Garrard, The Journal
BASED on a story by F Scott Fitzgerald, this is the front-runner at this year’s Oscars with a hefty 13 nominations.
Were it not for Slumdog Millionaire, David Fincher’s fable would probably sweep the board in a similar fashion to The English Patient.
However, this dazzling epic still stands a good chance of cluttering the mantelpiece with statuettes.
Gorgeous cinematography shows off the production design to the full, complemented by slick effects and heartstring-plucking score.
Yet there is something slightly awry in this fantastical tale of a man who grows younger.
Perhaps it’s the unshakable feeling that we’re being emotionally manipulated.
The film opens in a New Orleans hospital room, where Caroline (Julia Ormond) watches as her elderly mother Daisy (Cate Blanchett) clings to life.
To pass the time, Caroline reads from an extraordinary journal.
“My name is Benjamin Button and I was born under unusual circumstances,” confides the eponymous hero as we are transported back to 1918, when an expectant father races home to witness the birth of his son.
Mr Button recoils in horror at the baby swaddled in a blanket.
The mewling infant looks like an old man. He abandons the child and retirement home nurse Queenie takes pity on the babe, raising him as her own.
As Benjamin (Brad Pitt) grows older, he looks ever more youthful.
When he is eventually strong and old enough to leave the retirement home, Benjamin seeks his fortune aboard a tugboat captained by a hard-drinking Irishman and finds romance with a beautiful ballet dancer called Daisy (Blanchett).
The film recalls Forrest Gump, possessing the same scope and ambition as it juxtaposes an ordinary man’s escapades against a backdrop of 20th-Century American history.
Fincher’s brio carries the picture through the occasional longueur.
He orchestrates some stunning set pieces and dazzling sequences about the cruelty of fate.
Digital trickery superimposes Pitt’s face onto the bodies of other actors until he is able to embrace the lead role entirely and he perfectly captures his character’s inner turmoil; the fear of forging bonds with people he cares for.
